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Snowboarder Jeremy Jones Ventures to Earth’s Far Corners for Conservation

National Geographic Emerging Explorer Gregg Treinish founded Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, a nonprofit organization connecting outdoor adventurers with scientists in need of data from the field. He also organizes his own expeditions, contributing to research on wildlife-human interaction, fragmented habitats, and threatened species. In that spirit, his blog posts appear both here on Explorers Journal and in Beyond the Edge, the National Geographic Adventure blog.

Video interview by Jordan Holsinger.

My organization, Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC), has always been concerned with connecting the adventure and science communities. Both communities are very diverse, and from an adventurer’s point of view we’ve worked with the entire spectrum.

Although we think that weekend warriors and average Joe’s can (and do) make an enormous impact, we’ve always been drawn to getting elite athletes involved as well because they not only bring years of skill and expertise, but their celebrity can provide an excellent platform from which to educate others.

Jeremy Jones at the office. Photo by Clark Fyans
Jeremy Jones at the office. Photo by Clark Fyans

“If I can help bring back information from these untouched, untravelled places then I’d love to do more” – Jeremy Jones

Recently ASC was connected with professional snowboarder, environmental advocate and fellow National Geographic Adventurer of the Year Jeremy Jones through our incredible friends at Clif Bar who are sponsors of both Jeremy and ASC. Jeremy was literally on his way out the door to cross the globe when I got ahold of him in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

Jones was headed to Nepal with his sights set on some untouched, unvisited lines high in the Himalaya. There he was joined by a crew of professional snowboard mountaineers and a film crew from Teton Gravity Research who were filming for his next movie “Higher”, the final installation in his “Deeper, Further, Higher” trilogy.

Jones and the tools of his trade. Photo by Jeremy Jones.

“I think there’s this big spectrum of positive things that can be done… I think the science side is absolutely important” – Jeremy Jones

Jeremy is known as one of the best big mountain riders to have ever touched a snowboard but more recently has made his name a household fixture for his dedication to climate change advocacy.

He started a non-profit organization, Protect Our Winters, to mobilize the winter sports community to make changes in response to the threat of climate change and has changed the way he plays outside, now relying primarily on human power to access his turns using a splitboard rather than helicopters.

He even started his own snowboard manufacturing company, Jones Snowboards, that focuses on building high quality and high performance snowboards and splitboards with minimal environmental impact.

Slowing down and using his own power access powder stashes and big lines has given Jeremy a closer connection to the mountains and has led to a revolution in the snowboarding world for which he was named one of National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year in 2013.

Jeremy Jones collecting samples in Nepal. Photo credit Teton Gravity Research.
Jeremy Jones collecting samples in Nepal. Photo credit Teton Gravity Research.

Because of Jeremy’s passion for the environment and particularly the effects of climate change on mountainous environments we connected him with our glacier snow and ice sampling project.

For this project he collected snow and ice samples to help researchers understand the extent of glacier thinning and his samples from such a remote corner of Nepal are a valuable addition to the dataset.  

“My high school science teacher would be shocked and proud” – Jeremy Jones

Thanks again to Clif Bar for their support of ASC and connecting us with Jeremy. Be on the lookout for more about Jeremy from ASC and Clif Bar soon! In the meantime check out the trailer to “Higher” and keep an eye out for its release next year. You never know, you may see ASC in there.

Make sure to like ASC on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (@AdventurScience) and Instagram (@AdventureScience) for regular updates.

To donate to Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation click here.

NEXT: Hardened Alpinists Don’t Complain

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Meet the Author
Gregg Treinish founded Adventure Scientists in 2011 with a strong passion for both scientific discovery and exploration. National Geographic named Gregg Adventurer of the Year in 2008 when he and a friend completed a 7,800-mile trek along the spine of the Andes Mountain Range. He was included on the Christian Science Monitor's 30 under 30 list in 2012, and the following year became a National Geographic Emerging Explorer for his work with Adventure Scientists. In 2013, he was named a Backpacker Magazine "hero", in 2015, a Draper Richards Kaplan Entrepreneur and one of Men's Journal's "50 Most Adventurous Men." In 2017, he was named an Ashoka Fellow and in 2018 one of the Grist 50 "Fixers." Gregg holds a biology degree from Montana State University and a sociology degree from CU-Boulder. He thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2004. Read more updates from Gregg and others on the Adventure Scientists team at adventurescientists.org/field-notes. Follow Adventure Scientists on Instagram @adventurescientists, on Facebook @adventurescientists, and on Twitter @AdvScientists.